Freshly released into Early Access, Midnight Ghost Hunt has everything it takes to become a minor phenomenon on streaming platforms, Twitch in mind. With a game of hide-and-seek between 4 ghosts that can have objects to hide and 4 hunters equipped to the teeth to discover them, the Vaulted Sky Games title has all the conditions to create incredible situations. We’ve been looking into Early Access to make sure it’s in good shape to go ghost hunting.
You may have heard of the concept of prop hunting. This is an asymmetric configuration where a hunter has powerful tools to detect a player who has the ability to hide in objects to escape their predator’s vigilance.. Midnight Ghost Hunt takes the principle and pushes it further. Here, the game of cat and mouse takes place between two groups of 4 players who take turns playing the role of hunters or ghosts.
Short and intense games
On each of the 7 maps of the game with a very cartoon design and from the mansion to the pirate ship, the approaches of the two camps will be different. For their part, the hunters arrive at the end of the map already equipped with a weapon to dissipate ghosts, a device generally intended to facilitate their detection and a passive ability to improve certain statistics. The predators only have 5 minutes to find the 4 enemy ghosts. After this time, midnight will strike and if there is any surviving Ectoplasm, all other spirits will come back to life and have greatly increased stats: their life is greater as well as their damage. Therefore, the hunters have to survive 4 minutes before being exfiltrated to win the game or try to confront and kill the enemy ghosts.
Of course, the roles are reversed on the part of the ghosts, who are particularly vulnerable in the first phase of the game outdoors and must therefore use the elements of the decoration both to hide and as a shield. Until the hunters arrive, they have a little over a minute to possess an item. Ownership is a single click, and you can jump from object to object in the same way. Once you’ve taken possession of an object (be it a piece of cardboard, a flower pot, a sofa, or a gargoyle, for example), you’re free to move around with it, and that’s highly recommended. Why ? Simply because a spirit’s indolence increases the ease with which hunter devices can detect it. This small mechanism is therefore quite relevant since it forces the spirits to keep moving a little at all times, since without this constraint, given the very large number of objects present in each map, detection would be much more complicated. Once 5 minutes have passed and you or one of your partners is still alive, midnight will strike, as we explained above, and your entire party will come back to life and be able to attack the hunters with increased power.
Camps more balanced than equipment
But the question arises whether playing one group or the other represents an imbalance. Actually not really. If there is a small problem balancing between the different devices of the same camp, it is quite possible to get out of it very well on one side or the other., because the game isn’t just about running down hallways to spot moving streetlights, or waiting in a flowerpot hoping not to be found by the ghostbusters across the path. In fact, you can play varied games on one side or the other, changing equipment to better adapt to the game situation.Both sides have their own place on the map, which allows them to use part of their arsenal, theme , to switch to a small waiting time between two changes.
For example, in the stalking phase before midnight, hunters will no doubt favor melee weapons and tools that make ghost tracking easier. Radar, probes that detect the sounds of ghosts, filters designed to reveal their last steps… You’ll have a whole range of rather complementary gadgets at your disposal. The same goes for weapons ranging from a basic ectoplasm pistol to a more powerful flamethrower and a powerful shotgun, weapons that are more useful in Phase 2 of the hunt. However, you can only unlock equipment if you manage to accumulate skill points over the course of the games.
The ghosts, for their part, have slightly more original powers. Aside from owning objects, you can also use telekinesis, for example, to swing objects at hunters’ heads to take them out, or even move objects to divert their attention. Once dead you can also pursue the surviving hunters, for example by slowing them down or making noises that could create a distraction. In short, on one side or another it will be necessary to play it intelligently and use skills, weapons and other gadgets that already have a fairly decent number for early access to be able to achieve victory.
Another little way
This results in very short and above all very funny games. Possessing items and being able to fly them around the rooms create incredible situations that inevitably trigger fits of laughter in a group. As a hunter, the slapstick side of starting a chase with a sofa is inherently hilarious, as you can imagine. So, Early Access requires, everything is not ready yet. We ran into some sometimes-blocking bugs in one game, and some weapons or gadgets are more powerful than others to such an extent that once you’ve mastered the game a bit, you’ll find little interest in exploring the others a little less efficient or useful for group cohesion. This observation also applies to both camps.
Notice how it looks It is more than recommended to be accompanied by 3 friends to fully enjoy the fun that Midnight Ghost Hunt can offer. In fact, the matchmaking is still very random and it won’t be uncommon to find yourself alone at level 1 against a level 22/30 cohort. This means that you will have greater difficulties in understanding the mechanics of the game, and most importantly, the opposing team, like your partners, will have at their disposal very powerful weapons that will slow down the game and therefore not let you actively participate in the tasks, you will probably get splinters and expand your stuff with it. So many little gotchas that should be fixed quickly and from the looks of it, Midnight Ghost Hunt remains a solid choice for playing a fun multiplayer game.
Conclusion
Points cont
- A fun concept
- Short and rhythmic parts
- It’s just as fun to play the hunter as the ghost
- A fertile ground for burlesque situations
- In terms of content, stable and honorable for the time being
- More strategic than it looks
weak points
- Some imbalances between gadgets and weapons
- Matchmaking not yet perfected
- Not recommended solo if you want to learn gently
With its fresh take on prop hunting, Midnight Ghost Hunt offers a fun, entertaining quick-play experience that should liven up some of your evenings with lots of laughs. There’s certainly still a long way to go in the game from offering more maps, balancing the different gadgets with each other, or resolving matchmaking wanderings, but as long as you have 3 playmates you can already have a few evenings of fun exploring loot and predators and the different ways that the gadgets and the architecture of the maps offer. With even more content and a few tweaks, Midnight Ghost Hunt could be a hit in the future, as it’s undoubtedly as fun to watch as it is to play.
The opinion of the readers
Give your opinion on the game!
![profile of [87]iGamesNews](https://image.igamesnews.com/avatar-sm/0/0/[87]-1424272110-62d78ff2c9f6eb8b75acc27d77d2c987.jpg)
Of [87]Journalist igamesnews.com
MPTwitter
Table of Contents
